Have your say on .nz domain names

The .nz Domain Name Commission Ltd is consulting on whether registrations should be allowed at the 2nd level. This means that people would be able to register (for example) farrar.nz rather than have to choose a third level name such as farrar.co.nz or farrar.net.nz etc. This would be the most significant policy change to .nz since it was created in 19870.

People can make formal submissions at the above link until 27 September. But there will also be five public meetings, at which you can come along to learn more about the proposal, and provide feedback. The South Island meetings were last week but the details for the other three are:

Incidentally I’m a Director of the DNCL, and will be chairing those three meetings. The purpose of the meetings is not just to get feedback on whether people support or oppose the opening up of second level registrations, but also feedback on the specifics of the proposal such as the sunrise period, the conflicts policy etc.

If you would like to attend please RSVP to the DNC team at info@dnc.org.nz or phone 04 495 2110.

eszett

But more seriously, would someone who owns a .co.nz domain automatically get a .nz domain?

Because I agree with voice of reason, that it is a bit late to do this and will result in quite a bit of extra cost to stop cyber-squatting and lots of confusion.

If you already own farrar.co.nz you may not need to own .net.nz or .org.nz but you most certain would want the farrar.nz domain

[DPF: The proposal is that if you have farrar.co.nz and no one else has a farrar.2ld.nz then you get first dibs on farrar.nz. If however multiple registrants have farrar.3ld.nz then no one gets farrar,nz unless they agree amongst themselves.]

davidp

The 2LD is almost an indicator of reputation. You know that .govt.nz is used by government agencies, and .health.nz is only used by organisations in the health sector. You also know that .co.nz is a free-for-all. This proposed change just confuses things and essentially devalues the current reputation-based 2LDs. But, businesses and agencies will need to rush out and pay to safeguard yet another version of their current domain name and domain name sellers will make a windfall profit… So I am sure it will pass.

The domain name system is an absolute mess, both in NZ and globally. The only reason no-one cares is because they’re mostly irrelevant anyway. People find pages using Google, and once found and bookmarked no-one ever looks at them.

Spoon

It’s a cash grab.

Everyone who has a .co.nz will get the .nz equivalent offered to them, for an annual payment of $whatever. Anyone who has any sense will take them (to protect their identity), those who don’t will have them taken by squatters.

There are currently 430,000 .co.nz domain names out of a total of 500,000. I’d guess that of those perhaps 250,000 will stump up the cash for .nz – meaning a massive cash injection for InternetNZ, and one that keeps on going. Wholesale domain registration runs $15 per year, so that’ll net them close to $4m per year, on top of the current $8m per year they’re pulling in for maintaining a fairly simple database.

I’d support it if wholesale prices are halved (although I doubt that would halve retail prices).

[DPF: You may be unaware that InternetNZ’s policy is to reduce the fee, when there is a significant surplus, and has done so on three occasions – from $24 to $21 to $18 and then to $15. I don’t decide these things, but my expectation is that if such a change led to many more .nz registrations, then the fee would drop.

Incidentally there is an argument that over time there may be fewer registrations, if you allow them at the 2nd level. If you can get farrar.nz, you won’t bother with farrar.co.nz, farrar.net.nz and farrar.org.nz.

One of the things I’d be keen to hear from people at the meetings is not so much their view on what others might do, but their view on what they themselves would do if the policy changed. Would they register more or fewer names?]